Herbs, echlorophyllous, saprophytic, 5-16 cm tall. Stem erect, violet or yellow-brown, slender, with erect branches. Leaves scalelike, ca. 2 mm, pubescent. Spike terminal, unbranched; peduncles 5-25 mm, slender, ca. 2 mm in diam. Flowers sessile, minute, 1.3-1.5 mm; bracts persistent, basal, linear-lanceolate, longer than flower buds, apex acuminate, bracteoles absent. Sepals 5, free, imbricate, ovate-lanceolate, ca. 1 mm, apex acuminate. Petals 3, connate to 1/2 their length, yellowish or white with pink; lower petal somewhat keel-like and longer than lateral petals, ca. 1.5 mm, without appendages. Stamens 4 or 5; filaments united forming an open sheath adnate with petals; anthers sessile, free, ovoid-oblong. Disk present. Ovary 2-loculed; ovule pendulous; style straight or slightly curved apically, longer than or ca. as long as ovary, thin. Capsule subobcordate, wider than long, ca. 0.6 mm, ca. 1 mm in diam., margin without spines or denticulations, base with persistent sepals, indehiscent. Seeds 2, black, ovoid, ca. 0.5 mm in diam., slightly rugose, without strophiole. Fl. and fr. Jul-Oct.
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Herb, up to 25 cm. Stem simple or branched in upper half, 0.5-2 mm wide, violet or reddish, set with minute clavate hairs or papillae. Leaves 2-3.5 mm long, ciliate-pilose, usually violet. Spike 0.5-6 cm by 2-3 mm, rather dense, acutish at apex. Bracts ovate, c. 1.2 by 0.5 mm, cuspidate, ciliolate-papillose, erect, caducous before the flowers are full-grown; bracteoles absent. Flowers 2-2.5 mm long, yellowish white. Sepals free, subequal, c. 1 mm long, ciliolate-papillose. Anthers 5, rarely 4, sessile or stipitate. Disk lobe present adaxially at the base of the ovary, difficultly discernible, not accrescent after flowering. Ovary ± orbicular; style longer than the ovary, c. 0.6 mm long, straight or apically slightly curved upwards, apically widened into the slightly 2-lobed stigma; gynoecium at first longer than the androe-cium, later equally long. Fruit reniform to broadly elliptic, c. 0.6 by 0.9 mm, enclosed by the slightly longer sepals.
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